Old Liz's Old-Fashioned Cucumber & Tomato Salad Recipe ♥

This recipe originates from rural Missouri and a 1940s farm wife widowed young with four children, the youngest only 18 months old.

It's plain. It's thrifty. It's filling. I suspect Old Liz might tsk-tsk me to task for even calling it a recipe. My mind hears her harumph, "It's just cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden. Don't make a fuss." So no more imagining a woman whose spirit I can know only through the legacy of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren – and her cucumber salad. Maybe she wouldn't mind just a small fuss.

This is a good salad for those baseball-bat sized cucumbers from the garden. It needs a good rest before supper (30 minutes, say) but is even better the next day.

MORE OLD-TIME CUCUMBER RECIPES These are also simple cucumber salads. The first is how my grandmother made a cucumber salad with sour cream, Nana's Cucumbers with Sour Cream. The other is another classic, Cucumbers in Vinegar, my food blogging friend Danielle's Ima's cucumber salad. Plus, when we visited Karina from Karina's Kitchen near Santa Fe, just look what she made for my birthday supper, her very own gluten-free version of Old Liz's Cucumber Salad!

Peel and seed the large cucumber, then cut into chunks. Slice off the stem and blossom ends of the pickling cucumbers; in ribbons, peel off about half the skin (leaving some skin on adds crunch and some color) and then slice cross-wise to form rounds. Combine with remaining ingredients. Let rest for about 30 minutes or overnight.

I LOVED this salad as a child, My Grandmother made it for special summer events. BUT I GUARANTEE YOU, that she had NEVER heard of OLIVE OIL in the Midwest in the 1950s. What would they have used instead? And I don't remember it being oily at ALL, IS it POSSIBLE that she did a fast pickle with the vinegar and did not include the oil? I ask, because almost all of her recipes where lost in a flood. The ones that I could save are cryptic at best. Meaning that they would read. Flour, milk, sugar, mix together... Umm THANKS GRANDMOTHER! Could you tell me from heaven HOW MUCH of each?? ;-) Bless her heart. ;-)

Anonymous ~ Haha! You are so right about the olive oil! What would it have been, then, a vegetable oil like Crisco??? That’s my guess. Or yes, as you suggest, maybe “no oil “ at all. Thanks so much for writing, your enthusiasm made my day! :-)

My grandmother and mother made cucumbers & sour cream when I was just a little tyke. The difference from your recipe is that after slicing the cucumbers thinly, salting and resting in the fridge, with a dish over the bowl, we squeezed the water out before adding the chives, sour cream & seasoning. We also made a tomato, cuke and sour cream salad, dicing the tomatoes and cukes, adding chives and seasoning, then mixing with sour cream. These recipes taste best when using fresh from the garden tomatoes and cukes. I don’t think store bought would have the flavor so I’ve never made it with store bought.

June ~ Thank you for sharing your memories! You’ve got me hankering for cucumbers and sour cream -- my grandmother, hmm, maybe both grandmothers? made them like yours did! And you are so right about making this with garden cucumbers and tomatoes. For us, this year, that means waiting a bit cuz so far we’ve yet to get to a ripe tomato before the critters! I’m so glad you wrote, thank you.

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